Special Relationship (29 page)

After hours of thought, Nick decided to give her time and space to sort out her problems. His supply of sympathy was not limitless, he thought, especially as he could only guess at why she might be so troubled.

Katherine called him that evening, to remind him of the charity event she had organised for the following Monday. "Do I have to?" he asked.

"Yes, we haven't done anything on the charity front for ages. All we have to do is enjoy dinner, talk to a few boring people and in the auction bid several times as much for a signed photo of Frank Sinatra than it's actually worth. It's only at The Savoy, so not far to travel, and you should be home by midnight.

"Look forward to it," he said. "Anything else next week?"

"No, a few meetings on home soil but not leaving the country.

"You sound down?"

"A few things on my mind, Kath, I'll see you tomorrow."

"No, you won't...I've got a long weekend, don't forget, that's why I'm reminding you about the charity bash now."

"What's the charity?"

"Mental health."

"I might need them myself soon," he said.

Nick resisted the temptation to call Alex all weekend. He decided it would look juvenile if he interrupted her and the mysterious friend, if she did indeed have one, and he also held back on the Monday, so as not to look too keen. Instead he and Katherine spent the day visiting
Manarola at the racing stables.

"Where's Jamie?" he said as she drove them to the yard.

"Behind us," she replied.

"I thought I spotted his car earlier. Is it really necessary, Kath?"

"Of course it is. You know what happened last year," referring to a warning they had received from the police about a kidnap plot.

"It was just internet chatter," he said. "Nothing happened."

"Better safe than sorry."

A couple of stable hands were in the main yard, shovelling hay. But otherwise the place looked quiet, though some of the horses pricked their ears as Katherine drove in and the tyres of the car crunched against the gravel and threw up a cloud of dust. "Guess, this is their lunch break," she said when the mist of pebble crumbs had cleared enough to see several inquisitive-looking horses watching them
.

"Yep, they were galloping at dawn," he replied.

Marilyn Strauss greeted them at the door to the impressive Georgian house to the side of the stables. "Hello, Nick...Katherine, I've just put the kettle on, did you have an easy trip?"

"Yes, once we got out of London," Katherine said.

"James will be here soon, he is in the office working on entering up some horses for the races next week. I think Manarola might be one of them."

She showed them to the lounge and came back
with tea and sandwiches. She was a small. rotund women in her late fifties, with grey hair and a cheery reddish face. Nick knew how happy she was spending the day looking after the stable's staff, entertaining owners on their visits, and ordering the feed and other requisites for the horses.

"Nick, Katherine, great to see you," James said warmly as he entered the room. "Come on let's go and see him."

"They are just having lunch, James, hold on a while," Marilyn protested.

"Nonsense, the sandwiches won't go cold."

They looked at her apologetically and went out to see Manarola. His box had his name plate on the front and inside the radio played. "Radio One, he won't listen to anything else," the trainer told them.

Nick knew the story about the day they had put on a talk station and
Manarola spent the day weaving, swinging his head from side to side and rocking on his feet. It was a sign of boredom or the feeling of confinement that he'd never shown before but once one of the lads had changed back to his regular station he was back to his usual self.

"Watch this," said the lad who had accompanied them with a small soft black-and-white chequered football. "Here Manny," he said and threw the ball gently towards the horse.
Manarola bobbed his head in perfect timing and it bounced back towards them.

"He should be playing for Manchester United," Katherine laughed.

"Arsenal," said Nick, who had seen the party trick before.

"Jack, get him out of the box and walk him around," said James.

"He looks in fantastic shape," Nick said.

"Yep he has put on weight and muscle since Ascot and he will be even better next time," James promised.

"Can't wait. Where's he running?"

"Well, there's Newmarket in five days or
Haydock the week after. I was studying the likely opposition before you arrived."

"Well, I'll leave it to you...whatever you think."

After pats and mints, Manarola was being led by the lad back into his box when Katherine's phone went and the colt immediately sprang on to his toes and his big bulging eyes looked to his rear as best they could.

Katherine walked away to take the call. "Hi Kath, it's Jamie. I just wanted to let you know that there is some guy hanging around outside the stables and I noticed his car a couple of junctions back before we turned off. Do you want to tell the boss?"

"Where is he?"

"Parked right outside the stables, about fifty yards in front of me."

"Just one guy?"

"Yep."

"Are you worried?"

"No, not greatly, probably just coincidence, but doing my job."

"OK, thanks...leave it for now but stay close and keep in touch."

There were a lot of horses in the James Strauss stable and Katherine and Nick patted and treated most of them to mints before going back to the house and finishing the sandwiches and tea. She didn't let anyone know about the mystery lurker outside.

Marilyn fussed after them, anxious to please, but they explained their evening charity event and left the stables in good time to get back to London.

"Black tie tonight?" he asked her in the car on the way home.

"Yep, but you should be pleased, means you don't have to worry what to wear," said Katherine, breaking the law to glance at her phone to see if there were any updates from Jamie.

She was reassured by the lack of any messages, but looked in the mirror constantly on the motorway. She spotted Jamie's SUV travelling behind but all the other cars seemed to leave junctions just as she started to worry about them.

"What are you doing?" Nick asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Looking in the mirror all the time."

"Just checking Jamie's with us," she replied reassuringly.

When they got back to his apartment, Nick said he needed a nap before getting ready for the evening event and Katherine entertained herself watching the least worst of what afternoon TV was offering, which gave her the choice of game shows and cooking programmes, before scribbling him a note to say she was going home to shower and change, and that she would be back at seven thirty.

In his room, he checked his phone for Alex but there was nothing. He had just started to snooze when a call came through from one of his traders at the office, but he rejected it and turned the mobile off.

He was refreshed and ready in his dinner suit in time for Katherine's return and she came up in the lift with Christos as he sat on the sofa catching up with CNBC. The driver never drunk on duty – he liked his job too much - and had only a fizzy water, while Nick and Katherine downed a Scotch before they left for The Savoy.

Outside, he saw Jamie's silver Range Rover parked a couple of spaces from their car and frowned at Katherine before getting into the rear seat while Christos bitched about the traffic. But it was a short journey and they arrived just as Lord and Lady Ashton were getting out of their garish silver-blue Rolls.

"Hi Henry, Ellie, glad to see you," Nick greeted them.

"Nick, how are you?" replied Lady Ashton as they swapped kisses.

"No Alexander?" asked the Lord, shaking his hand.

"No, should
she be here? And, Henry, it's Alexand
ra."

"Oh just what my moles are telling me, and if they are not right then you are missing a trick, my dear boy," he laughed loudly. Katherine, privy to the chat, walked away hastily.

Inside Nick and Katherine sat on separate tables to spread the company's presence. He was sat with two couples and Sandra Richardson, who was a member of parliament for a deprived area in the north of England. "Please don't talk politics," he thought. But the starters hadn't arrived before she began.

"So, Mr
Hensen, weren't you before a parliamentary committee a couple of years ago, regarding the banking crisis?"

"Yes, I agreed to the committee's request to provide evidence, albeit having been cleared of any wrongdoing myself."

"But you must feel, whatever small part you played, that you share some responsibility for the crisis? I mean, it was bankers in general that brought the country almost to its knees?"

"Why? I personally pay a whack in taxes as do my employees. My company has always traded profitably and never received a penny in government aid. Nor would it ever want to. Among the scariest words you can hear from anyone is 'I'm from the government and I am here to help.'" This small speech, he hoped, would be enough to shut her up, but she carried on.

On the table opposite Katherine mentioned the company's work in some of the poorest parts of Africa. She told the guests that even Nick himself had risked the constant tribal and civil wars in Burundi to help deliver aid to the country's starving and needy in that country less than a year earlier.

"But it's a bit cynical, isn't it?" said a man – probably about mid-twenties but looking still school age – who
had already revealed he was a Guardian journalist.

"Why?" asked Katherine.

"Well, to put in bluntly, your boss went there for his company's PR, not the starving of Burundi."

"He runs a hedge fund, it's not something that the general public have access to. Him or the company working for a charity isn't going to bring us a load of new clients. We are not
a fucking  supermarket. Excuse me."

"Not the langua
ge you'd expect," he complained indignantly as she got up.

"Can I have a word," she whispered into Nick's hear. He excused himself and joined her outside. "I'm only on the same table as a fucking Guardian hack," she informed him.

"Well, it could be worse, The Independent or the Socialist Worker or someone. I've got a Labour MP!" he replied. "And who did the table arrangements?"

"The charity did, but maybe that shouldn't have happened. We were in New York when it was decided. You remember New York, do you, Nick?"

"Yes, I remember it well, and I remember you saying it was 'just sex'."

Katherine turned away abruptly and walked purposefully back to her table. "It's going to be a long evening," he thought.

He went to The American Bar and decided to give up playing hardball with Alex. "Have I done something wrong? Please call me. x," read his text.

By the time he got back the others had finished their salmon starter. His sat on the plate with the triangular brown bread where it stayed until the waiters cleared the table. After a dinner of Dover sole, he skipped dessert and went back to the bar, where he checked his phone for a message from Alex. There wasn't one. "What the fuck is wrong with her?" he thought.

"Your tie is a bit wonky," said Olivia, making the adjustments.

"I didn't know you were here."

"Like to keep in with the beautiful people, especially when it's for charity," she said, mimicking the word 'charity' as it might be said by an Hollywood actress. "No kiss?"

He pecked her on the cheek,
half-heartedly.

"How you getting on with that American babe everyone's talking about...what's her name, Alex?"

"Liv, I have to say, I don't think it's something that we should be talking about."

"I'm no longer a confidante of the high-roller Nick
Hensen, my former lover?"

"Don't think you ever were my confidante after we split," he replied bluntly.

"You've changed, Nick."

"No,
Liv, I'm exactly the same as I was when I was twelve. Any change is purely in your mind." And he walked back to his table to endure the MP again, leaving Olivia sipping a a large gin and tonic and, he guessed, revising her strategy.

"I suppose you'll be bidding?" the MP asked as he sat down.

"Would you prefer I didn't?"

The auction started with footballs and shirts signed by various Premiership football teams. Nick won a Tottenham shirt signed by the squad and, being a supporter of Arsenal, their fierce rivals, made a show of using it to wipe their table.

Sarah Richardson looked aghast. "What are you doing?"

"Having fun."

He also bid – and won – tickets for the country's leading boy band, a week in Florida for two and a cooking lesson from a TV chef. He went to see the auctioneer during the midway break and told him to
reauction
the items at their next charity event. "Not tonight, people will think I'm showing off and, please, make sure they do go back to auction," handing him a tip.